


i just wanna let you know (don't go)

by renmin



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Happy Halloween!, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, and norenfest!, chensung isn't really mentioned but they're dating, endgame noren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 19:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16311050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renmin/pseuds/renmin
Summary: renjun moves on from jeno.(spoiler: it goes terribly wrong. at first.)





	i just wanna let you know (don't go)

**Author's Note:**

> for norenfest (i had prompt 39)!  
> word count: 5510 words  
>  
> 
> warning: making out ( but nothing too explicit! >:[ ) + unrequited love :[

 

 

⁂

 

  
    
  his lips brush across the smooth expanse of renjun’s neck, sending shivers down his spine. renjun catches the bright, toothy smile that he’s slowly adjusting to (perhaps his acclimation is all the doing of these past couple weeks) and does what he’s grown accustomed to do - smile back, equally as brightly but not as toothily. renjun shudders tentatively, the subtle, tranquil waves of his body reacting to the gravitational tug and pull of scorching, eager kisses.

  

“nana.” renjun gasps softly into the cold, pierced shell of his current boyfriend’s ear, reveling silently in the way jaemin pauses for what seems like eternity, but is really only half of a second. he eases himself out of the harsh grip his younger boyfriend has on his arms and wraps his slender fingers around jaemin’s wrist in a silent plea for him to stop. 

 

jaemin does stop, his rough hands and calloused fingers that were furiously unbuttoning renjun’s baby blue button-up bumbling to a skidding halt. his lips mouth at renjun’s exposed neck, light-hearted exhales and flourishing hickeys ghosting all over the pleasant expanse of it.

 

“what is it? are you not feeling it today?” jaemin whispers, imprinting his voice deep into renjun’s ears and skin, the fleeting attacks on the chinese boy’s neck never ceasing – renjun discovers that he is too overwhelmed to answer. the playful biting stops, and jaemin sits up abruptly, the safe, steadfast cage that held him captive so warmly suddenly dissipating. renjun breathes out a sigh in protest, but it doesn’t reach jaemin’s eardrums. 

 

“let’s stop.” jaemin pauses for a few beats. “uh, do you want, like, tea? i’ve got some in the kitchen. just lemme look for it, it’s been a while since i last… yeah.”

 

renjun utters no words as the comfortable heat abandons him and imperils him to the brittle chill of jaemin’s air conditioner, turned down all the way to forty nine degrees (despite his and jisung’s complaints and it being the middle of autumn). exhaling peacefully into the sedentary quiet, he watches the retreating form of his boyfriend of a month and a half (a new record!). he admires the quavering lines of jaemin’s figure for a while.

 

his mind wanders somewhere far-off – a fluttering memory of when he went through this very same routine, many times before.

 

 _but with someone else_ , his brain supplies, unhelpful and unrelenting.

 

his mouth falls open slightly, lips parting in an unreadable expression. he barely notices the light pattern of jaemin’s feet making contact with his peach (nana’s favorite color) carpeted flooring. renjun doesn’t register the soothing scent of jasmine tea wafting through the crisp air, thawing his frosty surroundings – he’s simply too occupied with drowning in foolish musings of him.

 

his boyfriend’s voice, cutting through the air, whisks him back to his comfortable, habitual reality. renjun forces a tentative smile, gladly accepting the steaming, giddy, yellow beverage, hissing when the burning sensation of liquid freshly made seeps into his thin unprotected fingers.

 

“here you go.” the rise and fall of jaemin’s cadence spikes just like renjun’s heart rate does. his voice reminds renjun of a certain hot day, when he was past the tender, experimental age, when he blew translucent, holographic bubbles with someone, a boy, standing next to him in awe, commenting on how the bubbles were ‘not as pretty as you, renjun’. the boy hadn’t been jaemin. he gnaws nervously on his lower lip; his mug dances precariously in his unreliable hands.

 

“injunnie?” renjun stills as jaemin steals his cup away, leaving it safely on top of the glass coffee table. jaemin is looking at him with concerned eyes that renjun can’t bear to look into at the moment because of the crushing tide of guilt plunging onto his narrow shoulders. jaemin’s hands reach out for renjun’s, gently running his nails over his knuckles. as if he’d been burned, renjun quickly throws off his boyfriend’s grasp because it reminds him so much of holding hands with someone else – someone who smiled at him with his annoyingly distinct upward crescent eyes, who possessed an unfunny, awkward sense of humor, who loved cats and begged and begged his parents for years to get one, even though he was almost deathly allergic to them. an expression of bewilderment and hurt flashes across jaemin’s face.

 

renjun decides he doesn’t deserve to care about jaemin’s feelings.

 

“nana, let’s break up.”

 

jaemin’s face is blurry. renjun can’t make out his eyes, or his nose, or his lips. immediately, he knows he's made a mistake.

 

somewhere, he distantly hears the iron doors of a jail cell opening and the shouts of its prisoners as they’re thrown back out into the freezing, heartless world again.  
 

renjun's so selfish. 

  

 

⁂

 

 

“you’re cute,” renjun slurs, extending the _u_ sound, in the direction of a cute guy sitting on the wooden, splintering porch, away from the hoots and howls of the rowdy partygoers inside lucas’ house. the guy flinches visibly, obviously startled. renjun coos at the floppy dog ears attached to a headband on the guy’s head that fly up and down at the movement. however, his target doesn’t turn around, and renjun frowns, clearly not pleased with the wordless rejection. he drunkenly kicks at a small pebble lying near his feet, missing it a grand total of _one, two, three_ times until he actually manages to get his beaten up, four year-old sneakers to come into contact with the smooth expanse of the small grey rock. a pleasant thump is heard, along with a quiet, mumbled string of expletives, an indication that he’s hit his intended target. a silly grin slides sneakily onto renjun’s lips, and, stumbling, he somehow gets from where he’s wobbling against the back doorway to a few paces away from the black silhouette, hunched over and imaging what would make an absolutely breathtaking photograph against the fluctuating pinks and reds dashed across the dawn heavens.

 

“hey,” he mumbles a little too loudly. “you’re cute. what’re you s’posed to be? a dog? a big dog-wolf? by the way, you’re cute.” renjun’s head feels heavy (he swears that his vision is fading in and out, if the little neon pink and lime green dots and swirls and zigzags that he sees worming their way in every spot he can see are signs of it) and his slim eyes are drooping with something akin to fatigue but not quite. his brain swims with pick-up lines he would never dare to even whisper to anyone but his very close friends (read: no one) as his larynx formulates said flirtatious phrases and his lips, damp with the tingling burn of cheap, convenience store alcohol, part sweetly to stutter into the deaf, dawn atmosphere.

 

it’s well into the first quarter of the new school year, and renjun’s a junior (or maybe a senior; he’s too buzzed at the moment to remember what his name is, let alone his grade). every year, donghyuck, the boyfriend of one of his acquaintances, minhyung “mark” lee, the ace of the varsity baseball team, has his annual halloween party (which, for most high schoolers, is really just an excuse to drink undetected and make out in the numerous rooms scattered all over donghyuck’s large house). as usual, per every two weeks before october thirty-first, renjun had been cheerily invited to this party. he’d been feeling pretty amazing on that day, and, in a burst of abnormal extroversion, accepted the five-by-seven inch card sporting the iconic orange and black hues of halloween.

 

when he’d scored donghyuck’s old-fashioned invite, lost a few hairs stressing out over why he’d accepted it, and begrudgingly dug through his closet looking for something that could pass as a last-minute costume because jisung (that rat) had stolen his ghost one (which was just a white bedspread with circular holes cut into it for eyes; for the record, renjun ended up going as an angel, but no one except for jaemin, unsurprisingly, could tell because he’d lost his halo somewhere inside donghyuck’s house near the beginning of the party), he hadn’t expected to do whatever he’s doing right now. that is, as previously mentioned, sitting next to a cute boy wearing a set of faux dog ears and a tail and trying desperately to a) make it seem like he’s totally not drunk off his ass and b) catch his number, and maybe a date.

 

it took maybe a few minutes for renjun’s prompting to draw out a reply. although the most that was uttered was an irritated ‘could you please keep your voice down?’, renjun felt like he had just climbed mount everest and lived to tell the tale. of course, that led to more exasperating taunts, prodding, and poking at the poor dude. sometime during this pitiful, one-sided conversation, renjun’s vision suddenly decided to short-circuit, and all he could see and hear was white noise, mixed with urgent-sounding yelps materializing from somewhere that seemed thousands of lightyears away.

 

  

⁂

 

 

he wakes up to a dry, scratchy throat and a migraine that could rival the intensity of a category five hurricane. he hears the familiar sound of heavy, labored breathing and jerks his head to the right in anticipation, but he isn’t expecting mark’s face.

 

he feels the flames of guilt freezing his limbs and constricting his breathing. it feels like his lungs are filled up to the brim with smoke and ashes, and he struggles to sit up and swing his legs over his side of the bed. he’s burning with dread. he doesn’t want to think of him. he wants to move on; he wants a new beginning, new memories. all renjun needs is just one more chance at falling in love.

 

arms encircle his dainty waist and his sweltering thoughts simmer down to a boil. mark nips at his neck, but renjun makes no sign to show that he’s noticed. he feels the downturn motion of mark’s pretty lips against his neck. it feels so, so wrong because he shouldn’t be the receiving end of these tranquil little ministrations.

 

“what’s got you so down, baby? is it because halloween’s just around the corner?”

 

renjun’s a fool for praying that mark would bring up anything but that dreaded holiday. his current “boytoy of the month” (as jisung liked to call them dryly, much to renjun’s annoyance) would know how much that stupid, childish, tooth-rotting day meant to him more than most boys renjun’s dated around with, because donghyuck tells (read: used to tell) mark everything. he decides to not notice the asphyxiating undercurrent of disappointment in his older boyfriend’s tone, and scrambles to find a response instead.

 

“no,” renjun mutters, so softly he thinks mark doesn’t hear because he’s so silent – hasn’t said a word for what must have been three minutes or so.

 

“okay,” is what he hears, and renjun leaves it at that, much too engrossed in his pessimistic thoughts and impulsivity to care. he wants to dive back into the flushed comforts that sleep is able to offer him, but it seems much too impossible to at the moment, with mark’s tight, frustrated sighs feathering over his ear and the heavy weight on his shoulders, both physically and mentally.

 

( _the tremendous force of the door slamming open startles renjun so much that he drops his ceramic mug on the tiled floor. he doesn’t even flinch as a blend of sharp shards and jasmine tea splashes his toes. he only watches as donghyuck storms his way through their paltry living room, the heels of his pitch combat boots tracking unsanitary, outside substances onto their kitchen floor._

_it only takes him, both renjun’s best friend and roommate and his current boyfriend’s ex, a record time of five minutes and twenty two seconds to pack all of his belongings and leave their shared flat._

_renjun can hear him muttering all the way. wavering, watery curses scorch the tips of his ears. donghyuck pauses before he leaves._

 

_“huang.” it sounds foreign in donghyuck’s voice. it sounds like they’re strangers. and then it comes; the real ambush, the ferocious, expected attack._

 

 _“this isn’t what i meant when i told you to get over him._  

 

 _he leaves, unceremoniously; and renjun lets him slowly seep out of the warm coziness of his life, just like that – as if donghyuck is like the ruined, lukewarm jasmine tea that withers in between his toes and sinks into the carpet, ruining it._ )

 

renjun’s a coward.

 

 

⁂

 

 

“who’s jeno?”

 

renjun buries his nose deeper into the book he’s reading. suddenly, _italian painters of the renaissance_ seems much more interesting than the perfectly filed nail poking his cheek. he hears donghyuck’s loud complaining when he realizes he’s getting ignored.

 

“jun, don’t ignore me,” he whines, stretching out the _u_. renjun bites the inside of his cheek, trying not to laugh at his friend’s cute antics.

 

the morning after that fateful halloween party, donghyuck was cleaning his house and had discovered renjun, passed out, a ten digit number written into the palm of his hand, and mumbling incoherent nothings into the billowing, drowsy air on his front porch, and the pair hit it off. of course after that they just had to exchange numbers and text, call, and facetime constantly and become the best of friends. apparently, they shared a bond so strong that it stuck with them even when they graduated and went to college (much to renjun’s chagrin and donghyuck’s delight).

 

“ _oh_ , i get it,” the brunette beside him exclaims, so loudly that everyone (who doesn’t have their earbuds or headphones on at full blast) turns to look at the duo, sitting at the table nearest the starbucks’ exit. renjun prepares for impact. “is he your _boyfr_ –”

 

renjun discards his book in favor of slapping a hand over his best friend’s mouth, cursing how he didn’t have a filter. donghyuck snickers at renjun’s red face and agitated expression. when he thinks it’s clear, renjun removes the muffler and picks up his book, page seventy nine now bent at the corner. he frowns, then glares at donghyuck.

 

“he’s not my boyfriend,” he mumbles, feeling a bit scandalized. “he’s just a,” he pauses, trying to find the right word. “a _friend_ from high school. that i hang out with sometimes when i go on my three am starbucks trips. and occassionally macdonalds, too.” he doesn’t like the growing grin on hyuck’s face.

 

“what,” he spits out, tone flat, meaning: hyuck, _shut up_.

 

“nothing, nothing!” hyuck chuckles, high-pitched and mischievous. “just, i dunno, he seems more than just a friend, man.”

 

renjun raises an eyebrow.

 

“according to your senior yearbook, i mean.” he suppresses a screech of terror when donghyuck whips out renjun’s yearbook from his stupid unicorn backpack that mark got him as a gag gift for his birthday. “like, dude, just look at all the adorable shit you two doodled and wrote in here! how did i not know about this last year?”

 

renjun lays his head down on the cold starbucks table, thoroughly embarrassed.

 

 

⁂

 

 

renjun bumps into (both of) his ex(es) at another party (it’s not at donghyuck’s house this time, and it’s in celebration of his cousin chenle’s going away to college, not for halloween). he hadn’t expected it, though. he’d lasted a couple of hours and didn’t see him at all, and chenle knew about his bad breakup from jisung, so he had assumed they wouldn’t invite the person he absolutely did not want to see ever again.

 

(he was wrong.)

 

he’s getting comfortable in his seat on the kitchen island, another budlight in hand, when he makes contact with him. he wants to gag, or cry, or something. he needs to make an excuse to leave. so, he tries. (and fails, horribly.)

 

“i…” jeno looks at him expectantly, a red plastic cup in his hand. his eyes are cold, and his bright smile that renjun’s used to doesn’t light up his face. no more words come out; his voice has dried up – it feels like cotton’s been shoved down his throat and suddenly he’s suffocating. he’s choking on the memories piercing through his head and floating behind his eyes, repeating over and over again. he’s got no heart to push stop, because he’s _afraid_.

 

(remember, huang renjun is a coward.)

 

somewhere in between the two staring at each other and struggling to formulate words in order to converse casually, as if nothing’s wrong, jaemin bumbles into the kitchen, spots renjun, and immediately beelines over to him.

 

jeno finally opens his mouth to speak after what seems like stifling eternity, but jaemin covers up what he says, laughing at a joke that only he can hear, his limp arms latching onto renjun’s like pincers clamping down on prey, hopelessly drunk, and renjun kind of hears his heart slowly twisting and suffocating itself, feels the blood in his veins freeze and phase change into scorching ice. jeno’s looking at him with something unreadable in his gaze, but renjun’s too distracted by jaemin to decipher it.

 

jaemin drags him out of the kitchen, across the hall, down two flights of stairs, and into the bathroom on the left. he slams the door shut, locks it clumsily, and pushes renjun against it hard enough to bruise a bit. renjun winces at the hazy burn that spreads through his upper back and shoulders. their breath mingles, and renjun inhales the scent of cheap wine, sleazy perfume, and grapefruit.

 

“injun.” a shiver runs down his shaking spine at the use of his korean name, only and always reserved for jaemin.

 

“jaemin,” he breathes out, his exhale heavy and labored.

 

“don’t – don’t call me that,” jaemin pleads, a brilliant, dazzling pain dancing in his broken smile. “call me what you – what you used to.”

 

“nana,” renjun whispers raggedly, eyes looking at the bathroom’s chiseled tile floor. it appears grimy and unkempt in the dark, crimson glow of the club lights going on in the room outside (chenle had taken out the regular lightbulbs and replaced them with something he’d gotten from lucas, his brother’s boyfriend from hong kong, who was visiting. renjun had only shaken his head in distaste). hands gently pull his chin upwards, and he stares into jaemin’s damp, glimmering irises.

 

“i thought you were over him.” it sounds deafening. it drowns out the cardi b song, turned all the way up, playing obnoxiously loudly behind renjun’s trembling back. renjun wants to break away from the impossibly weak grip on his waist and the shadowy breath and the guilty tears of the boy in front of him.

 

“is that why you... left me? because you still like jeno?”

 

renjun’s drowning. blood rushes loudly in his ears and his head pounds with a whirlwind of nostalgia. he hates that name; _jeno._

 

“why didn’t you stay, injun?”

 

he sounds so broken; renjun wonders,

 

 _did_ i _do that?_

 

he doesn’t know the answers to any of those questions.

 

renjun shoves jaemin away, rivulets brimming in his own eyes as he’s overcome by the reason for the realness of their major fallout. his hands twitch and shake while he unlocks the bathroom door, hightailing it out of there as jaemin’s expression crumples and he cries quietly, but loudly enough to ring in renjun’s ears and clutter his brain with beady-eyed little bugs. he doesn’t know how many people he bumps into, but he knows that one of them almost looks like jeno. he smiles bitterly.

 

he runs out of the house, ignoring jisung’s eye roll and chenle’s concerned squawk and lucas’ thundering laughter that seems to reverberate around the whole entire house. he scoffs at donghyuck and mark making out, tongue and all, on the wall adjacent to the front door. (they got together again. good for them.) most importantly, though, renjun doesn’t notice the wide eyes he gets from jeno, or jaemin’s trail of pitiful sobs that follow behind him, mocking his escape back to whatever normalcy he could scavenge.

 

 

⁂

 

 

jeno and renjun are holding hands in the school halls, dumb grins on both of their faces. jeno brings renjun's hand up to his lips, gently pressing them against each individual knuckle and renjun laughs and it's so sweet, like the tinkling of cute, golden jingle bells. someone screeches out 'ew, pda!' but it goes unnoticed, because they're too immersed in their love for each other. they're in love. _love_.

 

jaemin holds hands with no one. jaemin kisses no one's knuckles but his own; it's out of self-pity. jaemin doesn't make anyone laugh how renjun laughs. no one makes disgusted faces or shouts 'ew, pda!' at him. no one loves jaemin; but jaemin is pretty sure he loves someone.

 

“injun, i love you," he whispers into the air miserably, when he's at home, exhausted and trying not to pour all of his feelings out to his reflection in the mirror. naturally, it falls on deaf ears.

 

it should've been them, together, as a pair. jaemin and renjun; renjun and jaemin.

 

the reality is this: _jeno_ and renjun. renjun and _jeno_. jaemin is just a nonexistent blotch on their relationship. he's the piece that doesn't fit in the puzzle. he doesn't belong, because lee jeno exists.

 

sometime later that week, amidst the new couple's public displays of affection and heartwarming loud 'i love you's and renjun’s and jeno’s gross pet names for each other ( _honey_ and _dear_ , respectively), jaemin learns to give up.

 

he's not the one renjun loves, and he knows it.

 

it hurts like hell.

 

  

⁂

 

 

renjun has second thoughts about their relationship. he likes jeno, he really does. he likes the cute dates (the last one was at this really nicely lit dog park. it was the best thing renjun had ever seen), the hand-holding. he likes kissing, watching jeno stumble over a cheesy pickup line with a beautiful blush covering his cheeks.

 

renjun really likes all of these things. _likes_.

 

he constantly asks himself, though:

 

does he _love_ jeno?

 

his hesitance makes him confused. he does love him, doesn't he? his immediate answer should be _yes, yes of_ course _i love him. he's my soulmate, my first love._ but what really pops up in his scatterbrained head is _i don't know_.

 

renjun makes up his mind 

 

unfortunately, it just so happens that a disgusting tapeworm of doubt leads to the demise of two happy people.

 

 

⁂

 

 

it’s been a while since renjun’s last hung out with jisung. it isn’t that renjun’s been avoiding him (read: it’s exactly that), it’s just that their schedules don’t match up anymore, what with renjun busying himself with the cold, unfeeling pages of his books and essays and the slightly more refreshing colors of his painting assignments, and jisung’s soccer practices and studying for entrance exams.

 

so, when jisung calls him up on a hot wednesday, renjun’s kind of surprised. he hesitates, but eventually schedules a day out with his childhood neighbor and friend.

 

they meet up on the following sunday, tired out from their busy week and in the mood to rest and relax. when renjun bumps into jisung in front of in-n-out, he laughs apologetically and offers to pay for their lunch. (jisung only brought five bucks, so of course he agrees.)

 

“so, who is it this time?”

 

the question confuses renjun. it was rather sudden – they’d been talking about how dumb jisung’s english teacher is. renjun knits his eyebrows together.

 

“i mean, who’s your boyfriend this time?” jisung seems to taunt him, eating a fry and looking at him with a lopsided frown.

 

“ _what_?”

 

“who’s the ‘boytoy of the month’?” renjun’s eyes narrow.

 

“i told you, it’s not _like_ that,” he mutters, setting his burger to the side, suddenly losing his appetite. “i don’t… i don’t date them to just mess with them.”

 

“sure you don’t, hyung.” jisung takes a sip of his root beer. “you’re acting like absolutely nothing happened last week – that you didn’t just set fire to jaemin-hyung’s entire world, aka you, like it was nothing. did you know that he’s been calling me, like, nonstop since then? and he’s always whining and crying and yelling about how he ‘needs his injun back.’ hyung, it’s kinda driving me crazy.”

 

renjun’s ears burn with anger and shame.

 

“what’s wrong, hyung? cat got your tongue?” jisung stares at him with sharp, all-knowing eyes, and renjun shifts uncomfortably in his seat. he stays silent, and jisung sighs. renjun can tell he’s exasperated.

 

“look, hyung, this isn’t like, to lecture you or whatever. i’m just saying, you need to fix whatever thing about jeno-hyung,” renjun shifts at the name, “yeah, i know all this is about jeno-hyung. anyway, you need to fix it, because it’s getting pretty tiring – for me, anyway. you can’t just keep trying to make yourself feel better about jeno-hyung by dating guys you have no serious attachment to.”

 

jisung’s saying all the things that he’s been trying to avoid for the past two years, and renjun isn’t sure if he’s relieved that it sits well with him.

 

“why don’t you talk to him or something,” jisung intones, after a long period of awkward, uncomfortable silence where renjun doesn’t say anything. he stands up, taking out a pad of sticky notes and ripping off one turquoise square. he takes a mechanical pencil out of his pocket and scribbles onto it.

 

“here’s his new number.” he sticks it onto their table, mumbling a ‘it was nice catching up with you, renjun-hyung’ and strolling out the door, the mechanical bell recording mocking renjun’s hesitation.

 

he glances at the sticky note, then looks at his half-finished burger.

 

renjun’s falling deeper, deeper down into the dark abyss of the cold, unforgiving hands of guilt.

 

renjun can’t breathe.

 

renjun’s drowning in his own beautiful galaxy of self-destruction.

 

it _sucks_.

 

 

⁂

 

 

“‘lee jeno, cute dog guy (i was actually supposed to be a werewolf though) hope you got home safe,’” renjun reads the yellow note that had apparently been stuck to his forehead (he silently thanks donghyuck for telling him that; he’d still been too buzzed by that halloween rager to notice anything) out loud. “uh, okay?”

 

he winces as his head throbs when he stares into the led lighting of his phone, trying to figure out who the hell this ‘jeno the werewolf’ is and why he gave him his number.

 

he almost drops his phone when chenle screeches for him to _come down right now, renjun-ge! we’re on tv! i’m not even joking, oh my god!_ he hears sicheng irately shushing his little brother; renjun smiles to himself, picturing the college sophomore’s red face and exasperated tone. as usual, he lets chenle playfully order him around, begrudgingly.

 

(but not before he shoots the guy a text saying ‘ _is this lee jeno?_ ’)

 

  

⁂

 

 

“ _hello?_ ”

 

renjun worries his bottom lip. he didn’t expect jeno to pick up.

 

(he didn’t expect himself to actually take jisung’s advice. it did kind of take him a while, though; around five-ish months, at least. anyway, he’s surprised that he somehow summoned the courage to dial the ghastly ten digits.)

 

“ _who is this?_ ”

 

 _oh_ , his heart sinks just a little bit lower. _he doesn’t have my number anymore. right._

 

“i, uh, um. hi? oh, shit, sorry, this isn’t how i wanted to, uh. talk. i mean, no, this isn’t what i–” he stutters out, heart pounding violently loudly against his ribcage.

 

“ _jun?_ ” renjun stiffens. jeno sounds fond.

 

why does he still call him that?

 

“yeah. it’s me, jeno. it’s renjun.”

 

even though he’s probably miles away from jeno at the moment, he can still feel the soothing aura and uncomfortable shift in the air between them; the wiry telephone cables and bright blue sky hanging over their heads connects them under the same platform.

 

it takes a couple beats of uneven static for his ex-boyfriend to reply.

 

“ _is there something wrong?_ ”

 

renjun thinks, pondering over the inquiry, tossing and turning it this way and that, analyzing it to figure out if what was currently on his mind at the moment would count.

 

“uh, yeah. it’s – it’s kind of bad,” he fibs.

 

“ _do you need me to… be there, or something?_ ” jeno’s timid voice isn’t what stuns him – it’s the undercurrent of hopefulness and the imaginary red light at the end of the tunnel that he can picture in jeno’s bronze eyes, a faint glimmer of possibility swimming slowly in them. (renjun’s also disappointed at how easily jeno fell for his lie, because a small, idiotic part of him still remembers how jeno could always tell when he was lying.)

 

“it would be… nice. if you could. if you’re,” he clears his throat, “comfortable.” 

 

 

⁂

 

 

“what are you saying?”

 

jeno stares at him with a sheepish smile, a beautiful rosy hue resting on his glowing cheeks. renjun thinks that his classmate could rival a greek god. the only thing he can think of right now is how handsome jeno looks. he pays no heed to the diminuendo playing in the background.

 

“i’m saying – well, no, i’m asking, actually – if you’d… like to try going out with me?” a thunderbolt of recognition flashes brightly through jeno’s eyes. “i mean, only if you’re comfortable with it! and like, we don’t even have to, y’know, i was just – lately, i’ve been noticing how pretty you are, and–”

 

he’s heard enough of the angelic confession. renjun cuts him off with a white grin, his snaggletooth poking out. his ears are burning, and so is his face, but he still manages to pull through that and take jeno’s larger hand in his, sweetly intertwining their fingers one-by-one. renjun’s eyes don’t gaze at anything except for jeno’s.

 

“is that even a question?” jeno doesn’t say anything, and renjun wiggles their conjoined arms back and forth.

 

“what's wrong, _honey_?” he jokes awkwardly, soft, raspy laughter erupting from jeno’s throat and echoing around in renjun’s bedroom.

 

renjun watches in awe at jeno’s – his _boyfriend’s_ – broad shoulders heaving up and down, gasping for breath.

 

“jun, this is why i really, really–”

 

 

⁂

 

 

the stressed chatter of everyone around them slices at the heavy tension dripping off of the tightly-drawn, imaginary string connecting renjun and the boy sitting across from him.

 

“so,” jeno starts, and renjun jumps, visibly startled out of his roaring inner demons. an apologetic glance is offered in his direction, and the smile that renjun sees painted gingerly on jeno’s tempting lips is all renjun needs to tear up. “wait, uh, don’t cry, jun,” escapes his ex-boyfriend’s panicked mouth.

 

he brings his left hand up to both shield his face from jeno’s not-so-subtle, prying eyes and wipe away the salty tear tracks sloping down the gentle curve of his pale cheeks. a fidgety puff of hot air flees from the safety of renjun’s trembling lips. his inactive hand balls up into a fist.

 

he can feel a foreign warmth surround his frigid fingers; it spreads through his wrist, up his arm, and to his heart, pumping blood erratically and emanating a horrendously loud, steady beating. renjun’s scared jeno can hear it.

 

an orchestra of beating drums drowns out all sound except for jeno’s light, comfortable breathing. a hand encompasses his – suddenly, their fingers are intertwined and renjun shudders at the feeling of a cool, refreshing surface against his cold, clammy palms. a few tears escape his eyes, but eventually the waterworks stop. renjun only looks through the hand resting over his eyes at the his hand in jeno’s.

 

a steady gaze burns into him – it’s so intense that he shudders for a good few seconds, taking in the unexpected development of their crackling relationship.

 

“don’t,” he whispers, quietly.

 

does jeno want this?

 

does _renjun_ want this?

 

(the better question is: _is he ready for it?_ )

 

“no,” jeno whispers back at him, equally as quietly but with so much more power behind his declination. despite his melancholy mood, the corner of renjun’s lips quirk up into a wry half-grin.

 

he sits there, in a booth at a macdonalds’ at three am, nostalgia flooding through his mind, heart pounding, blood rushing vigorously in his veins, warmth pooling in his abdomen. hands intertwined with someone he’d done this thousands of times with before but never imagined doing again, his own anticipation-filled breathing mixing with the steady rising and falling of the boy sitting across from him.

 

“isn’t it too soon to… to go back?” he inquires, carefully, not wanting to burn his last teetering bridge. the omitted part of his question, _to how it was before_ , brushes across both of their parted, waiting lips.

 

his answer comes in the form of a hand cupping his face, moving the hand covering renjun’s eyes so gently that he fears he’s going to break.

 

jeno smiles brightly at him. unattached to this reality, renjun compares the boy in front of him to jaemin, and he bites his bottom lip worriedly because _this_ is right. it feels like he’s found the last piece of the puzzle. it feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. it feels like the world has only just begun to turn on its axis, twirling around in endless repetition.

 

it’s so right because renjun loves him.

 

he _loves_ jeno.

 

their lips meet.

 

“–love you.”

 

 

⁂

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ajdnjdjjd the ending is so,,, ew i,,,
> 
>    
> anyway! achievement get: mem’s longest fic so far! (,,,but this is honestly only like a quarter of what other writers write so,, ajjdd im a weakling)


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